Hot Start to Pro Career for Greta Voelker

Greta Isabella Voelker is having a very good start to her career as a professional golfer in 2019. After winning on an American mini-tour in February, she claimed a win on the LET Access Series in May.

Voelker won the LETAS Neuchatel Ladies Championship 2019, which concluded on May 17 at the Neuchatel Golf & Country Club in Saint Blaise, Switzerland.

Voelker took the lead after a 67 in the second round that turned out to be the lowest score of the tournament on the difficult course. (It was 10 strokes lower than her first-round score.) With a 72 in the final round, she finished at 3-over 216.

But so did Annelie Sjoholm, so they went to a sudden-death playoff. And Greta won it on the first playoff hole.

Back in February, Voelker won the Zellwood Station Tournament at 12-under par, an event on the NWGA mini-tour in the States.

Greta is from Germany and has played a couple previous LETAS stops as an amateur. That includes a 16th-place finish in 2015, when she was 18, at the Hamburg Open.

She trained in the U.S. at the Annika Academy and played college golf for the University of Texas. While with the Longhorns, Voelker was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year in 2017 and was an all-conference selection. She also won the 2018 Dutch Ladies Amateur Championship while still in school.

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Nuria Iturrios: Back-to-Back on the LET

Make that back-to-back wins on the Ladies European Tour for Spanish golfer Nuria Iturrios: One week after winning the 2019 Lalla Meryem Cup, Iturrios also won the next LET tournament, the Omega Dubai Moonlight Classic.

After winning the Dubai tournament in early May, Iturrios took over the top spot on the LET money list, and it was her third career LET victory.

The Dubai Moonlight Classic was played at night, under the light at Emirates Golf Club. Iturrios finished at 10-under 206, winning by one stroke over runners-up Olivia Cowan and Esther Henseleit. In the previous tournament, the Lalla Meryem Cup (completed April 28), Iturrios had a runaway win. She won by seven strokes, finishing at 13-under 279.

Iturrios, 23 years old at the time of her two-fer, was born on the island of Mallorca. She turned pro in 2015 and currently splits her time between the Ladies European Tour and the Symetra Tour. Her best finish on the Symetra Tour so far — which she played for the first time in 2018 — is a tie for fifth.

On the LET, Iturrios won the Lalla Meryem Cup in 2016 for her first victory. She now has three career wins on the LET.

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Linda Henriksson: WAPT Victory

Linda Henriksson is a pro golfer from Finland who has won on the LET Access Series, the feeder tour to the Ladies European Tour. In 2019, Linda is playing mostly in America and she has Symetra Tour status.

But the week of April 8-14, 2019, Henriksson was in Louisiana playing the Atchafalaya Basin Championship. That's a tournament on the Women's All Pro Tour (WAPT).

And Henriksson emerged as the champ — her first win the United States.

We say "emerged" because Linda had to win a four-golfer playoff to claim the trophy. She got into the playoff by sinking a 16-foot par putt on the 72nd hole. That gave her a final-round score of 70, and a four-round total of 1-over-par 289.

And it tied her with Riley Rennell, Kasey Miller and Catherine O'Donnell. But Henriksson ended the playoff quickly, winning it on the first extra hole.

"I have so many people to thank and I’ll start doing that tomorrow. Now it’s time to CELEBRATE!" Henriksson wrote on Instagram.

You might not be familiar with the WAPT unless you are a serious fan of women's golf. That's because the WAPT is in its first year of existence.

But although the tour is in its rookie season, so to speak, it has a pretty important role for the golfers who are playing it: The WAPT is the official developmental tour for the Symetra Tour. In other words, as the Symetra Tour is to the LPGA Tour, the WAPT is to the Symetra Tour.

So Symetra Tour golfers can play WAPT events in weeks when the Symetra is not in session. Or golfers with Symetra Tour status who are on the alternates list for a Symetra Tour event can, if they don't get in, play in a WAPT tournament instead. Obviously, scheduling has much to do with those choices.

But having that choice is the key — expanding options for women's professional golfers.

And what does winning on the WAPT do for Linda Henriksson? Nothing, yet. The way the WAPT's relationship with the Symetra Tour works is that WAPT events are paired. And for each pairing of two WAPT events, the two golfers with the best combined performance get Symetra Tour exemptions.

For now, it's a trophy for Linda and a nice check, and those are pretty good things.

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Jillian Hollis Claims First Symetra Tour Victory

Pro golfer Jillian Hollis

Jillian Hollis earned her first career win on the Symetra Tour at the 2019 IOA Championship, and she did it with a late birdie and a late eagle in the final round.

After struggling in very windy conditions for much of the round, Hollis rolled in a birdie putt on the 15th hole, then eagled the par-5 16th. After parring out, she finished at 4-under 212, one stroke ahead of runners-up Julieta Granada and Amy Lee.

While it was her first win on the Symetra Tour, it wasn't the first high finish for Hollis, who joined the turn after turning pro in 2018. She finished eighth earlier this year in the SKYiGOLF Championship. Hollis had three Top 10s in her rookie year of 2018, including a runner-up finish.

In her 12 starts in 2018, Hollis showed great touch with the putter, ranking fourth on the Symetra Tour in Putts Per GIR and sixth in putting average.

Before turning pro, Jillian had a stellar amateur career that included reaching No. 23 in the world in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.

An Ohio native, Hollis played college golf for three years at the University of Georgia. She earned All-America honors all three years. She recorded four NCAA wins and 19 Top 10 finishes.

Pro golfer Jillian Hollis

You can follow Jillian Hollis on social media: She's @freewilly_jilly on Twitter and @jillianhollis on Instagram.

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Brittany Fan's Pro Career Off to Winning Start

Brittany Fan graduated from the University of Colorado in 2018. In 2019, her first year as a professional golfer, she already has two victories in pro tournaments. Not a bad way to start!

Both of Fan's pro wins so far happened on the Cactus Tour, the highly competitive Arizona circuit for golfers looking to make the jump to the Symetra Tour and eventually the LPGA Tour. Many of the Cactus Tour golfers — and Brittany falls into this category — are in their first years as pro golfers and are gaining experience (and, hopefully, winning a few checks) that will help propel their tour careers forward.

Win No. 1 came in the March 5-7 event at Sun City Country Club. There, Brittany carded scores of 72-68-69, finishing at 7-under 209, then won on the first hole of a playoff.

Win No. 2 for Fan came in the March 27-29 event, where she posted scores of 74-71-70, finishing at 1-under 215. Once again she had to go into a playoff, and once again she won it.

Brittany is from Pearl City, Hawaii, and was only the second Hawaii golfer to play for the Colorado women's golf team. Among her wins before reaching Colorado were victories in the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association Match Play and the Makalei Invitational Ladies Championship.

She was an academic and athletic standout in both high school and college. Fan was named a WGCA Academic All-America Scholar in 2014, and earned the Colorado Female Freshman Athlete of the Year award the same season. For her career, Fan became just the second Buff (after LPGA Tour player Jenny Coleman) to play in four NCAA Regional tournaments.

And, the Colorado women's golf website notes, Brittany's "name is all over the CU record book. Her 46 career events played is tied for second and her 127 rounds played is fifth overall. Fan’s 74.24 stroke average is first overall. She set the senior record for most rounds played (38), stroke average (73.16), and lowest SCIRP (1.26)."

You can follow Brittany on social media under the handle @B_fantastic1 on Twitter and @bfan_tastic on Instagram.

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Big Win for Olivia Mehaffey at 2019 Bruin Wave

If you're looking for NCAA golfers who are strong candidates to become good LPGA Tour players, Olivia Mehaffey better be on your list. The Arizona State (by way of Ireland) golfer is back in the winner's circle after claiming the 2019 Bruin Wave Invitational (hosted by UCLA) on February 26.

On a difficult course, Mehaffey finished at 4-over 220, winning by one stroke over a stellar field. It was Olivia's third Top 10 finish of the 2018-19 season.

Mehaffey, a junior, earned All-America honors following her freshman and sophomore seasons. Her first NCAA victory was at the 2018 Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge. She had eight Top 10 finishes as a sophomore.

Olivia already has a long record of success at the international level. In 2016, she won the Irish Women's Open Championship and the Welsh Ladies Open Stroke Play Championship. She also led Team Great Britain & Ireland that year to Curtis Cup victory, going 3-1-1 in the matches. Mehaffey has also represented Ireland in the 2017 Vagliano Trophy and the 2018 Curtis Cup.

Her best ranking so far in the World Amateur Golf Rankings is No. 5, and in the European Golf Rankings No. 2.

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